Talk
by Sir Gawaine
Summary: "Ruth, please," she interrupted, "Call me Ruth." "Ruth," Harry began again, "Welcome to Thames House." The tenth in the Harry, Ruth, Kodaline series.


**A/N – Wow, we are into double figures, guys! DOUBLE FIGURES. I'm as surprised as you are, really. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing and encouraging me in this series. You guys make it all worthwhile. No lyrics for this one, because once again, the title of the song is enough.**

**I should warn you…there is a **_**lot**_** of talking.**

The coffee shop at the bottom of Thames House was a new addition, a 'moral boosting' endeavour that had resulted in a soulless little room stacked with soulless little tables. It did serve surprisingly good coffee, not that Harry had much need to frequent the place.

It did have some uses, the main attraction being that it was an almost secure place to hold the sorts of informal meetings that MI5 agents needed to hold sometimes. Harry had always preferred _The Admiral,_ a shady pub a ten minute walk away, but one look at the file of the woman he was due to meet told him she might prefer this place.

"Your coffee, Mister Pearce."

The waiter was young, almost impossibly so, but he always remembered Harry, despite the fact he was an infrequent visitor.

"Thank you, Samuel," Harry nodded, "Is that a new tattoo I can see there?"

"It is," the young man said proudly, pulling up his shirt cuff just enough to show off the latest addition to the collection properly, "It took me ages to decide what to get. It's-"

"Kurt Vonnegut," cut in a soft female voice, "Be soft_._"

The waiter looked up and grinned. Harry followed his gaze to the new arrival. It was her, his new analyst. At this moment though, she only had eyes for Samuel.

"Be soft_,_" she repeated, "Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place."

The waiter recited along with her, his smile widening even more.

"You like Vonnegut, Ms-"

"Evershed. Ruth Evershed. And I don't see how anyone who claims to think for themselves can dislike him."

Samuel nodded and, eventually, seemed to remember that he had a job to do. He took Ms Evershed's order and disappeared. She turned then to Harry, a slight flush on her cheeks.

"Please excuse me. That was very rude of me, Mister Pearce."

He got to his feet and took the hand he was offered.

"Harry, please. And don't apologise. I have one team member already who is quite often distracted by some obscure reference. He will be delighted to have you on board."

She smiled and took the seat opposite him, opening her bag to remove a notebook and pen. Harry took a moment to look at her; the photos in the personnel files never did anyone any justice. Everything about the woman was sensible; sensible clothes, sensible shoes, sensible haircut. She wasn't dowdy though, not in the most obvious way. She was petite and shapely, pretty enough, and when she finally looked up at him again, he saw that her eyes were the most stunning shade of greeny-blue.

"So, Ms Evershed-"

"Ruth, please," she interrupted, "Call me Ruth."

"Ruth," Harry began again, "Welcome to Thames House."

"Thank you," she said, and then turned to the waiter who had appeared with her cup of tea. Samuel put it down gently and Harry saw that he had put two biscuits on the saucer instead of one.

"I think you have a new friend," he said dryly.

"Do all the waiters here offer a literary quote as part of the service?"

"Not all. He's quite a special young man, by all accounts."

Ruth took a sip of her tea and nodded, watching him expectantly. Time for business. She was nothing if not efficient, her file had said.

"Your file is impressive," Harry began, "I have already decided that you would be a good addition to Section D. This is an informal meeting, as you know. Do you have any questions to begin with?"

"None that come to mind immediately."

"Then please, tell me a little about your work at GCHQ. I don't often get up to Cheltenham."

It became clear that Ruth was shy, almost painfully so; she kept looking down at her hands as she spoke, blushing when she caught his eye. He tried to avert his gaze a little, to give her some breathing room; desk spooks, analysts and techies were a different breed, one that needed more delicate handling than his field agents. It had taken him a long time to learn that lesson, had eventually had Colin of all people spell it out to him when he said that shy people found eye contact terrifying at the best of times, but that Harry had the kind of intense gaze that made them want to run for the hills. A small nod from Malcolm had confirmed it, and Harry had been left wondering why no one had told him years ago.

Of course, there had been Connie. She was the exception to the rule. She was the exception to a lot of rules. The only one of his female colleagues that he had not, in his younger days, tried to take to bed. The only analyst he ever knew who could hold their own against the biggest egos in the service and come out on top. The only colleague he had truly regretted losing, the only one he still missed sometimes. The service had done very badly by her when it packed her off to the back and beyond. He still wasn't sure that, one day, they wouldn't all live to regret it.

His mind wandering, Harry jerked back into himself when he saw Ruth looking at him expectantly. She had clearly just asked him a question or come to the point in the conversation when he needed to contribute. He opened his mouth to ask her forgiveness when she got there first.

"Is there any other analyst on the team?" she asked, clearly repeating herself for his benefit, to let his save face. She didn't look irritated that he had not been listening to her. If anything, she looked slightly amused. Perhaps he had misjudged her. Perhaps she was a little more forthright than other desk bound colleagues.

"I have some junior analysts in the section, although they don't work directly with the main team. None of them are anywhere near as experienced or qualified as you. The languages alone…how many is it that you speak again?"

"Eight useful ones," she said, "Two more that are much less handy in this job."

"I'm afraid you will find me lacking in that area," Harry confided, finding suddenly that he had the oddest sensation of wanting to put this woman at ease, "German and enough Russian to get by are all I can offer. Rather outdated now, in this line of work. You will like Malcolm, our senior technical officer. He's fluent in at least five, I think. Be careful though – when he finds out you like languages, he will try and teach you Welsh."

Ruth laughed softly and sipped her rapidly cooling tea. Reaching for his coffee, Harry allowed the silence to stretch a little. Ruth wasn't Connie, that much was obvious. Connie would have never broken the eye contact first, never would have let this silence go by without making a cutting remark or a dry observation about one of their fellow patrons. In many ways, odd as it was to think about it now, Connie had been his closest and best friend. None of the senior analysts he had worked with since her had ever been good enough, not really. He wondered now if this woman had what it took to fill some very large shoes.

"You seem distracted," she said quietly, eying him over the rim of her cup, calling him out again on his wandering mind, "If it is not too forward to ask, is something wrong?"

Something about her tone of voice demanded, if not total honesty, then at least an answer that wasn't a lie.

"I've been the Head of Section for seven years now," Harry said slowly, "And I have never had a senior analyst who didn't let me down in some way. The best one I ever worked with was removed from her post before I ever got past Senior Case Officer. I was wondering if you were going to be the first in a long line of successful appointments."

"That's a very big question for an informal meeting, Mister Pearce," she said coolly, emphasising his name so that he did not miss the formal address, "But you were honest with me, so I will be honest with you. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason you have never had a successful relationship with an analyst is because you are judging them by impossible standards? Is the problem you, rather than them?"

Her voice was light, deliberately so, but a dark kind of mirth flashed in her eyes and any anger Harry felt at the tone of the question was gone in an instance. Here, finally, was someone he could have a reasonable conversation with.

"I hadn't considered that, Ms Evershed," he said slowly, "So perhaps we can come to some arrangement?"

She nodded, intrigued.

"You will do your best to fail to let me down in any way. I will do my best to judge you by your own high standards, rather than by ones I might still associate with another person. Does that seem fair to you?"

"Very fair indeed, Mister Pearce," she said softly, and her muscles relaxed once more as she reached for the last of her tea, "That's all anyone could really ask of their boss, don't you think?"

Samuel brought them both a refill soon after that and the conversation turned once more to safer subjects, to open cases that Harry was keen to have Ruth look at and to questions about the other members of the section and their experience in their areas. Ruth seemed eager to know about them and Harry knew already that they would all like this woman very much. He hoped, perversely, that it would not take very long for her to stand up to Tom like she had just stood up to him; it would do his senior agent good to take a tongue lashing from an analyst. Sometimes, Harry could see himself in Tom, arrogant and stupid as he had once been, and he hoped that he might be able to save the younger man from himself before it was too late.

"Well, Ms Evershed, it was a pleasure to meet you," he said at the end of the meeting, standing and offering her his hand, "If all goes well with the paperwork, I should see you on the Grid in a week or so. Safe trip back to Cheltenham."

"Likewise, a pleasure, Mister Pearce," she said, and it was testament either to her skill or to Harry's lack of ability in reading this woman that he could not tell if she was lying or not.

He watched her leave, collar turned up in preparation for the rain that was bound to still be pouring outside. He must have sat for longer than he thought, because Samuel came over and began to clear away the cups.

"She seems nice, Mister Pearce," the boy said conversationally, "Is she going to come and work for you?"

"She is, I hope."

"Well that's good. You lot need a few more people round here who appreciate the finer things in life. Just my opinion, of course, Mister Pearce. Will you be going now?"

"I will. Goodbye for now."

"Goodbye, sir. When that lady starts here, Mister Pearce, you send her down to me. I will set her up with a loyalty card and everything."

Reaching for his umbrella, Harry walked slowly towards the door. Ms Evershed had clearly charmed the waiter. She was going to charm the rest of the team. Harry could only hope that he would be able to keep his promise and see her for herself, rather than as Connie's replacement.

That was going to be a hell of a lot easier said than done.


End file.
